In the early darkness of equatorial Africa Kingozi, accompanied by Mali-
ya-bwana with a lantern, crossed over to the other camp. Simba and Cazi
Moto had come in almost at dusk; but they were very tired, and Kingozi
considered it advisable to let them rest. They had covered probably
thirty-five miles. Cazi Moto had found no water, and no traces of water.
Furthermore, the game had thinned and disappeared. Only old tracks, old
trails, old signs indicated that after the Big Rains the country might be
habitable for the beasts. But Simba had discovered a concealed "tank" in a
kopje. He had worked his way to it by "lining" the straight swift flight
of green pigeons, as a bee hunter on the plains used to line the flight of
bees. The tank proved to be a deep, hidden recess far back under
overhanging rocks, at once concealed and protected from the sun and
animals. Its water was sweet and abundant.

"No one has used that water. It is an unknown water," concluded Simba.

The stranger woman's camp was not far away; in fact, but just across the
little dry stream-bed. Her safari was using the same pool with Kingozi's.

At the edge of the camp he paused to take in its disposition. From one
detail to another his eye wandered, and in it dawned a growing approval.
Your native, left to his own devices, pitches his little tents haphazard
here, there, and everywhere, according as his fancy turns to this or that
bush, thicket, or clump of grass. Such a camp straggles abominably. But
here was no such confusion. Back from the water-hole a hundred yards, atop
a slight rise, and under the thickest of the trees, stood a large green
tent with a projecting fly. A huge pile of firewood had been dumped down
in front of it, and at that very moment one of the askaris, kneeling,
was kindling a fire. Behind the big tent, and at some remove, gleamed the
circle of porters' tents each with its little blaze. Loads were piled
neatly, covered with a tarpaulin, and the pile guarded by an askari.

Before the big tent a table had been placed, and beside the table a
reclining canvas chair of the folding variety. On a spread of figured blue
cloth stood a bottle of lime juice, a sparklets, and an enamelware bowl
containing flowers. The strange woman was stretched luxuriously in the
chair smoking a cigarette.

She wore a short-sleeved lilac tea gown of thin silk, lilac silk
stockings, and high-heeled slippers. Her hair fell in two long braids over
her shoulders and between her breasts, which the thin silk defined. Her
figure in the long chair fell into sinuous, graceful, relaxed lines. As he
approached she looked at him over the glowing cigarette; and her eyes
seemed to nicker with a strange restlessness. This contrast--of the
restless eyes and the relaxed, graceful body--reminded Kingozi of
something. His mind groped for a moment; then he had it.

"Bibi ya chui!" he said, half to himself, half to his companion, "The
Leopard Woman!"

And, parenthetically, from that moment Bibi-ya-chui--the Leopard Woman--
was the name by which she was known among the children of the sun.

She did not greet him in any way, but turned her head to address commands.

She moved her whole body slightly sidewise, the better to face him. The
soft silk fell in new lines about her, defining new curves. Her red lips
smiled softly, and her eyes were dark and inscrutable.

"I was what you call horrid to-day," she said. "It was not me: it was the
frightenedness from the rhinoceros. I was very much frightened, so I had
the porters beaten. That was horrid, was it not? Do you understand it? I
suppose not. Men have no nerves, like women. They are brave always. I have
not said what I feel. I have heard of you--the most wonderful shot in
Central Africa. I believe it--now."

Kingozi's eyes were lingering on her silk-clad form, the peep of ankles
below her robe. She observed him with slanted eyes, and a little breath of
satisfaction raised her bosom. Abruptly he spoke.

Her body stirred convulsively, and her finely pencilled eyebrows, with
their perpetual air of surprise, moved with impatience; but her voice
answered him equably:

"My friend, at the close of the hard day I must have my comfort. There can
be no fever here, for there are no people here. When in the fever country
I have my 'rig'"--subtly she shaded the word--"just the same. But I have a
net--a big net--like a tent beneath which I sit. Does that satisfy you?"

She spoke with the obvious painstaking patience that one uses to instruct
a child, but with a veiled irony meant for an older intelligence.

"I do appear to catechize you, don't I? But I am interested. It is
difficult to realize that a woman alone can understand this kind of
travel."

He had thrown off his guarded abstraction, and smiled across at her as
frankly as a boy. The gravity of his face broke into wrinkles of laughter;
his steady eyes twinkled; his smile showed strong white teeth. In spite of
his bushy beard he looked a boy. The woman stared at him, her cigarette
suspended.

"You have instructed me about my camp; you have instructed me about my
men; you have instructed me about my marching; you have even instructed me
about my clothes." She tallied the counts on her slender fingers. "Now I
must instruct you."

"Listen, my friend. In this world I do what I please--always. And when I
find that which people tell me cannot be done, that I do--at once. My life
is full of those things which could not be done, but which I have done."

"I have done them at home--where I live. I have done them in the cities
and courts. Whatever the people tell me is impossible--'Oh, it cannot be
done!'--with the uplifted hand and eye--you understand--that I do. Four
years ago I came to Africa, and in Africa I have done what they tell me
women have never done. I have travelled in the Kameroons, in Nyassaland,
in Somaliland, in Abyssinia. Then they tell me--'yes, that is very well,
but you follow a track. It is a dim track; but it is there. You go alone--
yes; but you have us at your back.' And I ask them: 'What then? where is
this place where there is no track?' And they wave their hands, and say
'Over yonder'; so I come!"

She recited all this dramatically, using her hands much in gesticulation,
her eyes flashing. In proportion as she became animated Kingozi withdrew
into his customary stolid calm.

"Quite so," he commented, "spirit of adventure, and all that sort of
thing. Where did you get this lot?"

Across the accustomed night noises came a long rumbling snarl ending
sharply with a snoring gasp. It was succeeded by another on a different
key. The two took up a kind of antiphony, one against the other, now
rising in volume, now dying down to a low grumble, again suddenly bursting
like an explosion.

He hesitated, smiling at her inscrutably. The flames from the fire were
leaping high now, throwing the lantern-light into eclipse. An askari,
wearing on his head an individual fancy in marabout feathers, leaned on
his musket, his strong bronze face cast into the wistful lines of the
savage countenance in repose. The lions had evidently compounded their
quarrel. Only an occasional rasping cough testified to their presence. But
in the direction of the dead rhinoceros the air was hideous with the
plaints of the waiting hyenas. Their peculiarly weird moans came in
chorus; and every once in a while arose the shrill, prolonged titter that
has earned them the name of "laughing hyena."

"And then you get your ivory and make the magic pass, and presto! it is in
Mombasa," she said, with a faint sarcasm.

"You mean I have not men enough to carry out ivory. Well, that is true.
But you see my habit is to get my ivory first and then to get shenzis
from the people roundabout to act as porters," he explained to her
gravely.

Apparently she hesitated, in two minds as to what next to say. Kingozi
perceived a dancing temptation sternly repressed, and smiled beneath his
beard.